Reporter’s diary

Press, 1 October 1983, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Kite flying TO MARK Japan Week the Robert McDougall Art Gallery plans to install several large Japanese kites in its centre gallery. The colourful kites will be strung from the roof on October 14 and will stay aloft until October 23. The kites belong to Christchurch Teachers’ College, and were a gift from Mr Kimiko Oga, of the Japanese Rural Toy Museum in Kurashiki, who visited Christchurch last year. De/a vu ' >■' NOVELIST David Nobbs seems to know something the rest of us do not. His television script, “The Fall and Rise of Reginald, Perrin,” has a title sequepce of a man shedding his qldthes and disappearing into the sea. The series rap justbefore John Stonehouse, the member of Parliament in Britain staged a parallel disappearing act at Miami. In his second novel, “Second From Last in the Sack Race,”, completed, some

months ago but published only last week, the author introduces a parrot which keeps saying “b off.” Only a few weeks ago a parrot uttered similar sentiments in a London courtroom, to the displeasure of the bench. There is no need to expect the parrot to be murdered for imitating a woman’s labour cries as happens in the book. That has already happened in South America where Mr Nobbs heard the story. Country blues LIFE in the country is not always easy as Henry Kissinger has found out. The former American Secretary of State has just bought a 10-hectare week-end retreat in Connecticut. Surrounding the property is 2ha of blueberry patches. For the last 20 years the fields have been open to the public every August, attracting up to 100 pickers a day. Dr Kissinger, however, saw the blueberry patches as a security threat: a blueberry bush would make an ideal

sniper’s nest and he notified the council of his plans to clear the fields. The diplomat has found himself in a tangle as tricky as any he faced in his international negotiations and will need all his diplomatic skills to deny the locals their annual foray. New management WHERE one of the movie posters used to be displayed outside the former Odeon Theatre in Tuam Street — now the First Assembly of God Church — is this sign: “Under New Management Instead of Sex and Violence, Love, Joy and Peace.” Hint, bint LEFT on the door of the Free Theatre in the Arts Centre, a $1 note and the message: “For the moving arts.” Right place A SYMPOSIUM on the biology of human intelligence was held recently in London — at the zoo.